I have never spoken to you before, and do so at this time merely from a sincere desire to be of some assistance." There was that in his manner of grave courtesy which served to steady the girl.

Probably never before in all her rough frontier experience had she been addressed thus formally.

Her closely compressed lips twitched nervously, but her questioning eyes remained unlowered.
"You may stay," she asserted, soberly.

"Only don't touch me." No one could ever realize how much those words hurt him.

He had been disciplined in far too severe a school ever to permit his face to index the feelings of his heart, yet the unconcealed shrinking of this uncouth child from slightest personal contact with him cut through his acquired reserve as perhaps nothing else could ever have done.